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April 2009
Click on the titles for more info...
The full articles can be found in the April 2009 edition of Impact on sale now.
20th century boys
The biggest budget film adaptation of a manga. Ever. The 20th Century Boys has just enjoyed a limited theatrical run and is due to hit DVD soon. Impact sits down with the director and manga writer for a chat about the apocalypse...
Yukihiko Tsutsumi:
Director of 20th Century Boys
Yukihiko Tsutsumi was born in 1955 in Aichi, Japan. His directorial debut was in 1980 with an episode of an omnibus movie, Eigo ga nanda/To Hell with English, in the movie called, Bakayaro/I’m Plenty Mad. He then moved to New York and directed music videos and high-definition productions. He also directed Homeless with Yoko Ono in this period. In 1994 Tsutsumi joined the founding members of Office Crescendo, Inc., a production company so he could direct a wider variety of material. His broadened expertise includes movies, TV dramas, music videos, commercial advertisements and publications. Recently Tsutsumi directed movies such as, Maboroshi no Yamataikoku/The Lost Legend of Yama Kingdom (2008), Ginmakuban Sushi Oji/Sushi King Goes to New York (2008), Hotai Kurabu/The Bandage Club (2007), Jigyaku no Uta/Happily Ever After (2007), Taitei no Tsurugi/The Sword of Alexander (2007), TRICK, the Movie 2 (2006) and Ashita no Kioku/Memories of Tomorrow (2006).
Impact: Were you familiar with the original manga?
Yukihiko Tsutsumi: I had read it and found it thoroughly entertaining. I can identify with many elements of the story because I come from the same generation as the characters. The way kids played back then and the...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
afro samurai: resurrection
Samuel L Jackson, soon to be back as Nick Fury in Marvel movies, returns as the Afro Samurai... accept no substitutes!
Here at Impact, we get sent thousands of DVD releases for review and most of them end up in a pile where they sit, never to be watched again due to the relentless tide of new releases waiting for reviews. A few releases though, I really cherish...and they get promoted to my ‘definite keeper’ pile - Ghost in the Shell, Hellsing, Cromartie High and Samurai Champloo, to name but a few... One release that was assured of a place in that pile was the original Afro Samurai mini series – an East/West co-lab, the likes of which hit a perfect blend, combining the vocal talents of my favourite bad-ass actor, Samuel L Jackson, stunning animated sword action and a killer hip-hop soundtrack and vibe courtesy of The Rza, all fused under the auspices of the Afro Samurai’s original creator, Takashi Okazaki. Afro Samurai was released in 2007, airing in the US on Spike TV before hitting the UK’s airwaves on Bravo, with a subsequent DVD release of the director’s cut. Now, 2008 sees the tale of the number one titular swordsman continuing with Afro Samurai: Resurrection and, suffice to say, space has been cleared for its arrival on my...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
american ninja: part 2
Part two of our look at the classic movie franchise of the eighties and star Michael Dudikoff.
Last issue Impact looked at the first three chapters in Cannon Film’s classic American Ninja series, which made action stars out of Michael Dudikoff, David Bradley and the late Steve James. For the final part of the retrospective, we take a look at the fourth and fifth chapters in the series as well as Avenging Force, an under-rated action thriller starring Dudikoff and Steve James that was released as a chapter in the Ninja series in certain territories.
AMERICAN NINJA 4:
THE ANNIHILATION [1990]
This instalment is crazy, sleazy, cheesy, lame and (in some ways) all kinds of awesome. Pushing the ‘80s fascination with ninjas to the max, American Ninja 4 features loads of day-glo night warriors and enough trash and action to fill several movies. American Ninja and American Ninja 2 were pretty solid action movies from the Cannon group and cemented Dudikoff as a star (at least for a brief moment). The third sequel, Blood Hunt, isn’t as fondly remembered with Dudikoff being absent and the new direction being camper than a row of pink tents. Still it’s kind of a guilty pleasure much like this fourth instalment.
Dudikoff is back, well sort of. He doesn’t turn up until well...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
bruce lee: the series
One of CCTV’s most ambitious projects, The Legend of Bruce Lee, recently made its debut on Chinese television. Impact’s Ricky Morris has watched all fifty episodes and brings us his overview of the entire series.
One of CCTV’s most ambitious projects, The Legend of Bruce Lee, recently made its debut on Chinese television. The epic series, which we previewed last year, stars Danny Chan Kwok-kwan as Bruce Lee and follows him from his birth to his formative years in Hong Kong, his time in North America and his return to Hong Kong, where he found stardom before his untimely death. Impact’s Ricky Morris has watched all fifty episodes and brings us the following review.
Let’s begin by saying that we had very high expectations for this project... a huge budget by Chinese Television standards, shot on locations including China, Hong Kong, Macau and North America with a very impressive cast that includes Danny Chan (the Bruce Lee’alike goal keeper from Shaolin Soccer), Michelle Lang as Linda Lee, Ray Park as Chuck Norris, Gary Daniels, Mark Dacascos and Michael Jai White, and Executive Produced by Shannon Lee. A 50 episode series showcasing the life of Bruce Lee, a US$6.4 million budget with his daughter as Producer, what could go wrong?
In terms of casting Bruce Lee, the choice of Danny Chan was a great starting point. Chan first caught people’s attention when Stephen Chow cast him as the...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
dragonball: evolution
After the darkness of Watchmen and The Dark Knight, Impact’s cover story suggests it’s about time we had something for the whole family...
As we’ve often reported, it can be a rocky path ‘twixt game and cinema screen. What, at first glance, may seem like an obvious transition - after all action-fuelled, kinetic entertainment is a mainstay of both formats - can often become a cropper if the interactivity of the game experience is lost and if the story based on the game doesn’t hold water. However in the case of Dragonball: Evolution it’s probably a matter of never mind the quantity, feel the quiff. Because yes, the hero with the hairstyle and eastern cinemas veritable veteran Chow Yun fat combine for a romp that should have the kids and the young at heart perfectly satisfied, if not the more discerning older audiences.
The brainchild of Japanese artist Akira Toriyama, Dragonball began life in 1984 as a manga series, selling some 35 million copies in Japan alone. Inspired by the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West, this story of Goku, a young man who sets out to collect seven mysterious objects known as Dragon Balls, has since spawned three different anime shows, trading cards, video games, action figures and numerous animated films. There’s probably lunch-boxes out there somewhere too.
James Wong was brought...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
far from fragile
Beau Smith takes his monthly look at the world of comics: this issue he assesses whether superheroes and their comics, like everything else, will suffer in the current financial crisis. What price, the heroes?
Comic books were invented to be a disposable, inexpensive form of entertainment. They’ve been just that through World Wars, semi-World Wars, recessions, sky-high inflation and even higher gas prices. In fact, during the worst of these times, comic books have actually thrived. Along with films, Comic books have been the refuge for all classes of people to seek escape from the turmoil of hard times. In case you didn’t know, the worst hard times are upon us all. The cause goes beyond the blame game that all politicians are so eager to play. Spending time blaming someone else is what people do when they can’t figure out how to solve a problem. That only prolongs the problem.
For decades comic books held steady at a cover of 10 to 12 cents. Even taking into consideration the value of the dollar from the late 1930s through the early 1970s the price of comics remained a very cheap form of entertainment.
During the 1970s we saw the cover price of comic books jump from month to month. This was due to the rising cost of printing, cable television, less mass-market distribution, the birth of video and arcade games as well as...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
fusion and farscape
Ricky Manning takes us behind the scenes of his new internet project: Fusion and discusses the WGA strike, its implications and the enduring appeal of all things frelling cosmic!
Look Ricky Manning up on the IMDB and you’ll note he was apparently a Left Cornerback for the Chicago Bears. It’s at this point that you’ll realise your mistake and put his more formal name. ‘Richard’, into the search engine and come up with an equally impressive résumé (albeit one that doesn’t require as much huddling and helmets - or maybe it does...) that encompasses everything from Fame to Tek-War, from a little thing called Star Trek to a big thing called Farscape.
As a writer his pen and keyboard have covered several genres and several decades and he’s still having fun. But, like many in his chosen profession, the WGA Strike at the end of 2007, left writers with a problem: Where to channel their creative inspiration during the time-out? If work couldn’t be done for actual profit, perhaps it could still be done to keep the creative juices flowing. Ricky decided to strike while the iron and the strike were still hot. Perhaps echoing back to those heady days of the New York School for the Performing Arts... it was a case of ‘let’s do the action show right here!’ Now... all he needed was an...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
japanime
Amid his regular coverage of all things animated and eastern, Andrez Bergen unburdens his secret obsession and its connection to Takashi Miike and Yatterman...
Our mostly intrepid Tokyo correspondent, Andrez Bergen, has a bantam-sized confession he has to divulge, but he’s not altogether sure it’s a wise idea - and it has very little to do with the article that’s about to unfold here. But maybe we wouldn’t have latched onto the movie we’re set to discuss, if not for that fractionally grubby skeleton in his closet. Then again, we likely would have blabbered on a smidgeon, since Takashi Miike is the director involved.
Most people think Takashi Miike is adept only at jaw-dropping violence. They would be right (literally, too) if they’d previously copped a viewing of the schlock-violent Tadanobu Asano vehicle, Ichi the Killer (2001). Personally, I’ve never quite felt the same way about innocuous piano wire, or seemingly passive people, ever since I saw Miike’s Audition (1999). But the director threw most fans’ heads into a spin with the arrival of the English-language-chewing, jidaigeki-spaghetti Western, Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), in which he cast long-time admirer, Quentin Tarantino. Miike, a some time bit-actor himself, also had a cameo in Eli Roth’s torture/horror flick, Hostel.
There is a point to all this background bunkum, and that sharp thingy in fact brings me back to...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
lesbian vampire killers
Impact bows its head to the socially-aware, deep and meaningful and artistically wholesome outing that is... Lesbian Vampire Killers. Johnny Messias grabs his stake and goes behind the scenes with co-writer and action-film addict Paul Hupfield.
Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle of Death. Two Thousand Maniacs. Blacula. No, not scripts passed on by Judy Dench, but classic examples of one of the best loved clichés in film criticism: it does what it says on the tin!
In this fine tradition you may well have seen trailers for a new British flick which promises to combine the much loved wonkiness of Hammer Horror with nubile women in clothing wholly unsuitable for outdoor pursuits in the British Isles, paying lavish attention to, er, each other.
So, Lesbian Vampire Killers is the tale of two lovable losers, Jimmy (James Corden) who’s been dumped multiple times by his irritating girlfriend and Fletch (Mathew Horne), his best mate whose life revolves around beer and those parts of a woman’s anatomy he can either honk or indicate with his index fingers.
Broke, horny and confused they head off on Fletch’s harebrained hiking trip to stumble upon a Norfolk village in the deep forest where they find a pub with inbred locals who look ready to re-enact Deliverance, a mad Vicar (in the shape of Paul McGann). And naturally, a bus load of horny Swedish ‘students of folklore and legend’ in push-up bras. Will...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
reality bites
Reality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but then again, neither is cracking up. Impact takes a look at two movies that combine the mundane and the fantastical... but did we let the right one in?
The job of a trailer is to sell you a film and the trailer for Franklyn promised an intriguing action adventure that mixed the styles of such greats as Terry Gilliam and Neal Gaiman with the anarchic feel of Alan Moore and Lewis Carrol. A Rorscharch-esque (if that’s not a word yet, it will be) masked figure surveys a surreal cityscape as he is pursued by top-hatted gendarmes and battles against a system and society gone mad. Think V for Vendetta meets Alice in Wonderland. All very interesting and provoking, visually arresting and the sort of thing that makes you want to at least try out the full product.
Sadly, the Franklyn trailer is somewhat misleading and the full film itself, directed by Gerald McMorrow, is a jumbled mess of a creature that lurches rather than meanders and likes to think it’s through a looking glass darkly but merely manages to look through a lens precociously. In fact a large proportion of the film doesn’t take place in the fantasy world of ‘Meanwhile City’ at all, but in a rather mundane British cityscape as a young man, Milo (Control’s Sam Riley) tries to recover from being left at the altar, a...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
rick yune
Calum Wadell talks exclusively to Rick Yune about his career, characters and Commandments.
Few actors can claim to be overnight success stories but Rick Yune is one such case. Indeed, the native Korean made an immediate mark with his debut in the hugely acclaimed romantic drama Snow Falling on Cedars and quickly followed this up with the double-whammy of 2001’s The Fast and the Furious and 2002’s Die Another Day (in which he played the lead villain). Make no mistake - the big man was on an unmistakable roll; gracing magazine covers and attracting that all-important burst of female adoration. Surprisingly, however, the actor opted not to capitalise on this sudden injection of celebrity with further bouts of high concept carnage and instead retreated from the public eye - only recently re-appearing in the Thailand-based martial arts outing The Fifth Commandment, which UK fans will be able to see on DVD by the time this issue of Impact hits the newsstands. In the picture, which Yune also produced and wrote, the performer plays an assassin who turns down a professional hit because it involves him taking out a member of his own family. In this snap decision the hunter then becomes the hunted and the action is turned up to the max. Sure,...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
sex and the duplicity
The last time Clive Owen and Julia Roberts starred together, it was the very solemn Closer, but Dina Burgess discovers that spy thriller Duplicity has a distinctly lighter touch.
In many ways Duplicity is a throwback to the screwball romantic comedies of the 1950s with the likes of Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn but with heavy doses of action and industrial espionage thrown in. So Julia Roberts and Clive Owen have to find a similar chemistry which they achieve pretty well.
They play Claire and Ray who are CIA and MI6 agents respectively. After a one night stand where Claire ransacks Ray’s room in a bid to find top secret documents, a chain of events is started which sees the couple apparently join forces in a bid to outwit the corporate big-wigs and make a few million dollars on the side. Plus after a few more ‘encounters’ they gradually start to genuinely fall for each other. Although just how genuine their love is remains to be seen because they’re inhabiting a world where nothing is as it seems and no-one knows who to trust.
Julia Roberts believes the fact that she and Owen have worked together before really helps the on-screen rapport: “If we can do a movie like Closer, if we can get through those scenes together and still be friends, I think we deserve to be able...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
stranger hero
Disability and martial arts cinema are not new bedfellows - think back from One Armed Swordsman and Chocolate to Mat Fraser’s Kung Fu Flid for examples. Martial arts action featuring a Downs actor in the main role is arguably more ground-breaking...
Martial arts cinema has always thrived on the concept of the underdog, ‘David and Goliath’ style confrontations that pit a skilled practioner against the brute strength of the aggressors. From Jackie Chan to Tony Jaa and beyond, it’s a classic hero’s journey and, while action stars come and go, the dynamic remains the same. Stranger Hero introduces a veritable new kid on the block, because never before has there been an underdog story quite like this or a martial arts actor quite like Ged Watts. Ged has Down’s Syndrome but, just like his action heroes Chan, Jaa, Van Damme and Bruce Lee, Ged kicks ass!
Stranger Hero is the flagship project of a UK based production company, Shoot Your Mouth Off (SYMO), which specialises in the positive representation of disabled people. Writer/ Director Steve Carolan says: “Stranger Hero is the ultimate in positive representation - a fantasy hero for people with learning difficulties to identify with as they follow his adventures through a futuristic wasteland, where disabled people are being used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. It’s a setting which is full of danger, drama, comedy and of course action which allows Ged to show off the full range of...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
street fighter
...and the second family-friendly outing gives us a Minogue/van Damme free outing in the latest incarnation of Street fighter. Is it a big deal or a Smallville? We have a chat with Robin Shou and John Bierly critiques the movie itself...
It’s been fifteen years since the first live-action film based on Capcom’s hugely popular Street Fighter series of video games. Jean-Claude Van Damme starred in the first one; it made $100million internationally on a $35million production budget, but never generated the excitement necessary for a live-action follow-up. Animated sequels and series came and went in the years following, while the games have remained a constant presence on players’ screens worldwide. The most recent iteration, Street Fighter IV, made the move from arcades to consoles in Japan, Europe and the United States in February. A new live-action film, The Legend of Chun Li, has been released to tie-in.
Bearing no connections to the Van Damme film beyond using some of the same characters from the games, it attempts to be the Batman Begins of lovely Chinese fighter Chun Li and succeeds with relative levels of success that rest squarely on the shoulders of Kristin Kreuk, best known for playing Clark Kent’s first love, Lana Lang, on Smallville. Kreuk’s warm narration throughout the film begins on a note of sweetness and innocence that gives way to purpose and wisdom.
Chun Li is the daughter of Xiang (Edward Chen), an international business whiz...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
the belgian pitbull
With the ironic JCVD putting him back on the action radar, what’s next for Jean Claude van Damme? Impact talks exclusively to the man about his career and plans.
The universally positive response to JCVD, has given Jean-Claude Van Damme a much deserved career resurgence. While Impact has long championed the man and his movies, it’s only now that the mainstream media seems willing to acknowledge him and the almost universal appeal of the man and his movies. Jean-Claude has recently wrapped on a very personal project The Eagle Path (originally known as Full Love), which saw him wearing multiple hats as writer, producer, director and star. Impact’s Eastern editor, Mike Leeder, a longtime Jean-Claude Van Damme associate, caught up with the man to talk about JCVD, The Eagle Path and what the future holds...
Impact: Jean-Claude, were you surprised by just how well JCVD movie has been received around the world - did you have any idea when you got involved with the project that it would get such response?
JCVD: It’s been refreshing and inspiring to see the film getting such great feedback, and that people have taken the film to heart. (Laughing.) It’s funny as, for a long time, I didn’t really think we would ever make the movie. The first time the project was discussed was after I’d been interviewed for a documentary a few years...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
the legend is alive
The Rebel’s villain, Dustin Nyugen, plays the mentally challenged son of Bruce Lee in this Vietnamise kick-fest. Impact checks it out.
After a solid turn as the lead villain in the acclaimed Vietnamese actioner The Rebel (reviewed in Impact Feb 2008), Dustin Nguyen delivers a more serious turn as a mentally challenged martial arts hero in art-house director Luu Huynh’s The Legend Is Alive. The film could best be described as a mixture of Thailand’s Chocolate, Forest Gump and the spirit of Bruce Lee, combined by the skilled hands of an award winning director. What emerges is a very entertaining and ultimately more rewarding piece of work than your typical slice of action fare. Impact’s roving reporter and resident Vietnamese movie guru Phil Wyatt delivers the first UK review
Luu Huynh’s previous film, The White Silk Dress, garnered much acclaim worldwide for it’s portrayal of one family’s struggle throughout Vietnam’s turbulent 20th Century. For his new movie, Luu takes his well-honed skill in crafting a remarkable drama and combines this often slow moving environment with the more fast paced traits of an action movie.
Dustin Nguyen (21 Jump Street, VIP, Little Fish) plays a Vietnamese village idiot named Ly Tieu Long (which happens to be the Vietnamese translation of Bruce Lee’s Chinese name Lee Siu-lung). Through the clever use of flashbacks we...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
watchmen interviews
Finally. It’s here. So did the ‘unfilmable’ graphic novel live up or down to expectations? Impact editor John Mosby meets the cast and crew prior to the premiere...
There were those who said it shouldn’t be made. (Alan Moore, please stand up). There were those who said it wouldn’t be made. (You lawyer types that nearly cost us the March release date, we have your number!) And there were those who said it couldn’t be made (Terry Gilliam once commented it couldn’t be anything other than a mini-series). And yet, it’s here. The atomic clock reads five minutes to midnight, but at 4:30am, and mere seconds after Danny Boyle has danced like Tigger at the Oscars, I’m hitting the road down to London to see if Watchmen the movie has been worth waiting twenty years to watch. I wouldn’t do this for just any film, but Watchmen is... well, a film less ordinary.
When Zack Snyder was announced as director for a cinematic version of Watchmen, the choice was met with both a few raised eyebrows and more than a few resigned shrugs. In context, this was a film that had been either the Holy Grail or poisoned chalice of comic-book adaptations for over twenty years. The human genome had been mapped, wars had been won and lost, but bringing the ultimate story of flawed superheroes to the screen...
[ This article is available in full in the April 2009 edition of Impact ]
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